Simmons and Gladwell

I feel like I have literally died and gone to heaven. I am there now.

Why?

Cause Bill Simmons and Malcolm Gladwell are having an email exchange. I … I … can’t process my own … joy …

Simmons starts his email exchange like this:

When I started reading you back in the mid-’90s, I remember being discouraged because you made writing seem so easy — technically, you were almost flawless, and since I knew I couldn’t write that well, you were one of those visible writers who made me feel like I was going to be bartending my whole life. You never waste a word. You come up with cool arguments and angles for your pieces, then you systematically prove/dismantle those same arguments and angles, and you do it in an entertaining, thoughtful, logical way. You never allow your biases to get in the way. You’re better at writing than me in every way. Basically, I hate you.

hahahahaha

The image of the two of them going out for drinks and having some hottie hit on Gladwell … just … ARGH.

I’m in heaven. Two of my writing idols? Emailing about SPORTS? And WRITING? Kill me now.

Quotes I so far love:

From Malcolm Gladwell: “Rural Ontario is not, exactly, a hotbed of athletic ability. I think I read somewhere that Jason Williams (the point guard) and Randy Moss went to the same high school. How is that even possible? If Brian Scalabrine went to my high school, it would now be called the Brian Scalabrine Memorial High School.”

hahahahahaha

More:

From Gladwell: “They say that Wayne Gretzky, as a 2-year-old, would cry when the Saturday night hockey game on TV was over, because it seemed to him at that age unbearably sad that something he loved so much had to come to end, and I’ve always thought that was the simplest explanation for why Gretzky was Gretzky.”

More:

From Bill Simmons: “My favorite Red Sox regular season was 1986, and only because I was stuck living in Connecticut before the days of DirecTV and the Internet. We did have Channel 38 on our cable system back then, but they didn’t show that many of the Red Sox games, so either I had to climb on my roof to catch a static-filled radio broadcast or wait for “SportsCenter” and Warner Wolf highlights on Channel 2. (That was a big year for me and Warner because he also announced the Drago-Creed fight in “Rocky 4.”) Still, I appreciated the season more than if I had lived in Massachusetts and watched the games — every telecast was a treat, every radio broadcast was an effort, every highlight felt like a special gift, every box score was studied and analyzed, every phone call from my Dad felt like a live report. It’s crazy, I remember more about that ’86 season than any other season. And I missed most of it. ”

Just finished reading the whole thing. Even better: it’s only Part 1!!! Part 2 to come on Friday. SO satisfying.

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18 Responses to Simmons and Gladwell

  1. Lisa says:

    Who’s Brian Scalabrine?

  2. red says:

    Basketball player

  3. peteb says:

    Admittedly some of the sports references are lost on me.. not all.. but some..

    But –

    “You were like the sports fan’s equivalent of John Travolta in the “Boy in the Plastic Bubble.” What happened when you finally got TV? Did you not leave your house for, like, three weeks?”

    Hahaha

  4. red says:

    peteb – I know – hahahaha That John Travolta film is such a generational thing … I reference it all the time myself – it’s so ridiculous!!

  5. peteb says:

    Completely bizarre.. I wonder if the OT8 still has it on his CV.. or whether he’s cleared himself of that memory?

    And I see Malcolm Gladwell has referenced the email exchange on his blog, linking to the Bill Simmons article.. and in the process a new audience has found him..

    Actually I’d love to read what his first thoughts were when the initial email arrived.

  6. red says:

    peteb – sadly for myself, I know that Travolta became a Co$er in 1975 – which is BEFORE that film came out (a year before).

    He was already on the famed “bridge to freedom” by then.

  7. Lisa says:

    Boy in the Plastic Bubble was the first time I ever heard masturbation referred to in a movie. I didn’t get at first, but all friends were SHOCKED.

  8. dad says:

    Dearest:Brendan called to tell me about the simmons/gladwell conversation. I particularly liked Simmons explaining to Gladwell the baseball thing, and his using 2004 games 4-5 Boston/NY as example of how unique being there is in bball–thanks to Mike, Jean and I saw 4 and 5–how great wast that!. love, dad

  9. peteb says:

    I knew you’d know, Sheila :)

  10. red says:

    Dad – amazing – what an amazing week that was!! So jealous you guys got to go!

    For those games, I was sitting in some bar until 2 in the morning … because I didn’t have TV at that point!! Longest. Baseball Games. Ever.

  11. Lisa says:

    I wonder if that older lady he was romancing at the time (Diana something? Hyland? Is that it? She died, I know) was the one that hooked him up with CoS.

  12. red says:

    Lisa – Oh I remember her – she was in Plastic Bubble wasn’t she?

  13. Lisa says:

    Yes. After I hit “Post” it hit me that she played his MOM in BitPB. Ew.

  14. red says:

    Apparently she died in his arms. I did a quick search of my Co$ database sites and her name doesn’t come up … I think somebody else got him into it.

  15. Ken says:

    My favorite was the “Oil Can Boyd stories” line, and the bit about the alien seeing Kelly Holcomb throw for 300 yards against the Bengals. As a suffering (should go without saying, really) Browns fan, I can identify.

    If Malcolm Gladwell was listening to AM radio of NFL games across Lake Erie in his youth, he was getting the Bills, the Browns, the Lions, maybe the Steelers. That’s a really neat story, economically told.

  16. red says:

    Ken – yeah that bit about the alien seeing “football” was hysterical!!

  17. Steve Ely says:

    I’m not sure if I agree with Gladwell about the implications of the analogy he drew in the last two paragraphs, but other than that, yeah, it was an awesome, fantastic exchange. Thanks for the pointer to it.

  18. Nightfly says:

    They’re rocking the joint, ain’t they. Between that, Lileks, and Mark Steyn, I may as well snap all my pencils in half. “From where the sun now stands, I shall blog no more forever…”

    I remember ’86 very well myself, being a Mets fan. I remember feeling utterly calm even as Carter stood in with those two strikes on him. “Eh, they’re going to win,” I said. I just KNEW. When Mookie’s grounder finally dribbled through, even my Mom (who thinks ‘sports’ is a typo) was jumping up and down like a maniac. I just smiled. In a way it was creepy afterward. I knew, I tell you. It wasn’t as exciting because I had no doubt (unlike, say, the Miracle on Ice).

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